I was concerned for Sarwar’s safety when a protester came in

I couldn't help being alarmed when a protester strode in, camera-phone held up, to stand a couple of feet in front of Anas Sarwar as he gave his first speech of the Holyrood new year.

The unnamed man's entry into the room as Mr Sarwar delivered his address in the Annie Lennox building at Glasgow's Caledonian University on Monday seemed to take many of those in the audience, senior Labour politicians, party candidates and staffers and journalists by surprise.

For some minutes before the gatecrasher arrived in the room around 20 Pro-Palestine protesters had been staging a demonstration on the ground floor inside the building with the Scottish Labour leader having to raise his voice to make sure his speech was heard.

There seemed to be an expectation that the demo downstairs would be confined to that area. Obviously that turned out to be wrong.

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Confronted face-to-face by the protester, Mr Sarwar kept his cool as the man quizzed him if he thought a genocide was happening in Gaza.

"There is a genocide happening in Gaza," the Scottish Labour leader told him.

The protester then asked: "Have you told your party leader that there's a genocide happening in Gaza."

Mr Sarwar responded: "I believe Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal."

The protester was then bundled out of the room by Labour minders.

Everyone in the room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief that the incident had passed off peacefully. No harm done.

A protester entered the room, walked right up to Anas Sarwar and quizzed him about Palestine (Image: Colin Mearns) But I was left wondering: 'What if someone with nefarious intentions had made their way in?'  The situation could have ended very differently.

Mr Sarwar is of course not the first prominent politician to have a speech or event interrupted by someone with a cause to highlight.

Sir Keir Starmer had glitter thrown over him on the stage by a protester as he gave his keynote speech as opposition leader to the Labour party conference in 2023 in Liverpool.

Security officers removed the man from the stage. He was arrested with the protest claimed by People Demand Democracy, a group which uses disruptive tactics to push for electoral reform. Sir Keir dusted off the glitter, continued his address and later said the protest did not bother him.

Just last month police had to remove pro-Palestinian protesters from an event with First Minister John Swinney at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Unlike the protesters at the Sarwar and Starmer events, the demonstrators did not come into close proximity with the First Minister with police officers and Mr Swinney's security team able to keep the people away from the stage.

Now, clearly, people have a right to peaceful protest, but politicians also have a right to express their views and be heard without fearing any prospect that they could come under physical attack.

And in my experience of observing politics and politicians over the years, the situation has deteriorated in the last decade or so. People have become angrier and tragically politicians have been killed.

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About 10 years ago I was out at a community event in Strathbungo, in the southside of Glasgow, one summer Saturday afternoon and spotted Nicola Sturgeon browsing some craft stalls and picking a Father's Day card.

We stopped and chatted, as she did with other local people.

I didn't notice any obvious security around her and remember thinking how lovely that a First Minister of Scotland could safely wander around quite happily in a neighbourhood of the country's largest city without police protection officers close by.

Sadly, with politicians today operating in a much more fraught environment I doubt whether I could see that situation now.

What's the solution? In my view that's complex and relates to the need for governments to address the rising cost of living and improve public services, as well as ensuring people don't feel their interests and concerns are being ignored, whether those are, for instance, about waiting years for a hip operation or the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Gaza.

With answers to our many crises some way off, I would expect, in the meantime, that politicians will be tightening their security as they brace themselves for the wrath of protesters.